Reconnect
by LuxahHeart
Summary: After losing him because of the accident involving Black Dranzer, Tala is left in the Abbey alone to deal with the hardships. Through brief encounters he and Kai come in contact, only for Kai to slip further away from Tala's grasp. A short fic for KTScott. Yaoi. Kai and Tala.


**Dedicated to KTScott.  
I hope you like this.  
The flow of it goes from the first season through second and third for those that might get a bit confused. **

**My first actual Kai and Tala fic! I actually really like it, had no clue what I was doing but promised this so here we go. **

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World champions; that's what they had been for years, had been born and bred to be. Hardened in the harsh winters, forged through the unbearable pain and torture at the hands of their 'masters'. The food was scarce, the beds were hard, and the training was endless with no love in sight.

You weren't allowed to have friends, it was forbidden, it showed weakness and weakness was always crushed out if you valued your life.

In such a dark, uncaring place, it was rare to even form a bond anyways. Nobody tried, it was the last thing on their minds as survival was all they could focus on. But then it happened, when it shouldn't have. A bond, one that seemed to be unbreakable until that fateful day where half of the Abbey was blown apart all because of one ambitious little boy.

That day had changed the lives of not just him but those around him, nobody was the same after that. How could they be? Their strongest boy, only at the age of seven, was now gone. He was supposed to be the one that led them to victory, the ultimate tool for world power and now he could hardly remember his first name.

The bond that he had with the ambitious little boy was now broken, he was broken and left alone in that horrid place. At first he hated him, after the initial shock wore off, and then he envied him. He had freedom while he was still stuck, in and endless down spiral that never stopped.

Then it happened, he got word of the ambitious boy's return, but once again there was no hint of recognition in his eyes. He didn't remember anything still, only a few snippets and why would he? It had been seven years since the last time he had seen Tala, there wasn't a reason for Voltaire to have told Kai about his past when he had lived with him in the Abbey.

Still, there was a small swirl of hope, maybe if Tala reached out Kai would remember him but he stayed back in the shadows. Kai looked better off; he didn't need to be reminded of the hell they had lived through all their lives. He had made friends, had replaced him.

Like a weird twist of fate the ambitious boy had also become curious and once more, for a brief moment, he returned. Tala's hope grew, it wasn't much but now he had his best friend back but Kai still wasn't the same. He would never be the same and neither would Tala.

There was still no hint of recognition in his eyes, they were strangers like they had been the first day Tala had arrived at the Abbey all those years ago. And he had to stay back, they weren't allowed to have friends let alone feelings for someone else. But that was exactly what had happened to him, even if it had been brief he had formed something in the depths of his soul for Kai that he had never let go. Despite the anger and envy he harbored for him; he had also loved him.

Some would have called it foolish, that Tala was trying to cling onto something he had been denied all his life or replace the love that had been torn out of him with these feelings instead. How could he not though? How could he not love the other boy who had stood up to their masters when they were merely just boys, protected him and fed him his food when he had been denied dinner for a subpar job during training?

Seeing Kai again was like taking a hot knife to the chest, he never stepped up. Staying in the shadows again and playing the part of a perfect puppet, following orders like he had been trained to do. Kai had fallen back into the same darkness, the one that had ripped him from Tala's side to start with and that only intensified the burn in his chest. He had hoped, to an extent, that Kai wouldn't have ever returned but it was in his blood. Tala knew that, and he despised it.

Then he left again, abandoning him all over again for his real friends. The friends he didn't have to fear of losing because he was no longer under their master's control. And once more, with the same kind of spiral he had been through his entire life, Tala let go with that same hatred he felt the first time Kai had left.

Tala threw the match, for him. He didn't care, because he wanted to protect him even if he would never know. But Tala was tired, they had altered him because they had lost Kai again and he wasn't going to be the reason for hurting him. He couldn't.

Once the Abbey shut down, Tala and the other boys were finally given a small taste of that same freedom Kai had been given and they were placed within the system. Some were so far gone they never returned, and nobody mourned for them because they had nobody to mourn for them. Tala pressed on, he had to because he wanted to see Kai again. If it meant nothing in the end, if it meant getting his heart ripped out all over again, he still had to try.

Finally, a year later, he had found him and stepped back into the shadows. There was something different about Kai this time, sure he had the friendship he had made with his teammates but one stood out in particular. Tala wasn't going to step between that for his own selfish reasons, he couldn't do that to Kai so he left again with the fragments of his broken heart barely intact.

Then came another year, Boris returned and this time Tala returned not for Kai but for himself. He had to put a stop to it, had to protect the younger generation from the hell he had been raised in. Luckily the others saw the true intentions of Boris, wanting to put a stop to it just as much as he did and without them Boris would have won.

Somewhere in the darkness that Tala had been pulled into after his battle with Garland there were voices, not very clear, but there had always been voices in his head since they had experimented on him two years before. This voice was different though, it was familiar and warm.

He wanted to reach out, talk to him again because he had missed him but the darkness that had swallowed him whole disallowed it. He couldn't reach out again, he felt he was losing his chance once again. Then he was reminded that it was for the better, Kai didn't need him because he had someone else and Tala wasn't going to get between that.

He had felt it though, he wasn't sure how long he had been in that bleak damp darkness, but there was a stab in his heart again. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and he couldn't do anything about it because the darkness still held him too tightly and all he could do was shed a tear as the pain in his heart seared his soul.

He had never been scared of that darkness, he knew it too well to be scared of it, but now he feared it because it kept him from the one he needed. The one he had wanted with all his being and now he too was gone.

With the light came the jarring reality that maybe things weren't as bad as he had thought, had felt, in that darkness that had held onto him for so long. The world seemed right, Boris was gone again, and to his relief Kai was alive. How, he wasn't sure but he was too happy to care. They had exchanged a glance, it was brief, but even so Tala was reminded of the love he had for him in that one short moment because then he was reminded that Kai didn't need him. He never did need him; it was Tala that needed him and he was finally ready to let him go.

He went back to Russia with the others, Kai stayed in Japan with the friends he had made there. For a while it hurt, finally letting go what he had grasped onto for so long, until slowly he found a love of his own.

It didn't last long, barely a year, but he felt free when it ended. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, he would never know nor did he stop to question it. His feet moved him forward, head held high. Two years down the road his life was jerked in a new direction, forgetting the lost love and focusing on himself until he was painfully reminded how much he had actually missed him.

They met, it was brief, but it had stirred those feelings he had tried to bury within him again. Kai had come to live in Russia, at first he didn't say why or what happened but Tala sat there with him in the bar in silence until the drinks started to really flow. He hadn't expected it, the way Kai opened up to him that night and all he could do was fight down the hope again as he listened like the friend he had always been meant to be.

Five months later, after they had exchanged numbers, Kai called him out for drinks again. Tala didn't hesitate to go. Once more they shared stories, Tala giving Kai the rundown of the past two years of his life in Russia as Kai sat there with a smirk around the rim of his glass, looking to be hanging on every word Tala said.

Another month passed and Tala asked Kai out, his nerves were shot having just thought of it but he had done it and with bated breath he waited for Kai's answer; yes.

He was on the moon, the hope he had and the shattered pieces of his heart were mending slowly. He dressed his best; they went for dinner and drinks. It was cordial, casual, nothing more and nothing less but to Tala it meant the world. He finally had him back, all to himself, even if it didn't go further than just dinner and drinks.

After a while the shattered pieces had been fully healed, the light in his eyes had returned and the love he felt came back almost ten-fold. He wasn't sure when or how, but he understood why. It had never truly left him; Kai had truly never left him.

A year later, after many dinners, drinks, and the occasional home visit by one or the other Tala bit the bullet and confessed. Confessed all the words he had wanted to say for years but had been too scared to, told Kai of what he felt after Kai's battle against Brooklyn almost four years ago. Had to tell him about the other one who Tala thought had taken Kai's heart a long time ago, only to get laughed at but then told he understood why he would think such a thing.

Even without a confession in return Tala felt lighter, lighter than he had ever felt in his entire life. The chains that had been invisible and keeping him down snapped, Kai didn't reject him or the idea, but he hadn't given him what Tala truly wanted.

It took almost another year, maybe all along he had been fighting it himself but Kai knew that something had been missing. Through everything, from the start to the end, there was always a hole within him. Without his memories he wasn't sure what it had been, with his memories he could only grasp at straws at what it _could_ have been. But these past three years with Tala, back in his home land, it was like the fog was finally clearing and he realized that what he had been missing was him. All along it was him that he needed, Tala had said it was the other way around but Kai disagreed.

Tala's confession had made the wheels start to turn, the realization hitting him like a truck. He felt guilty, holding out this long from accepting it himself but all it took was one little call like always and a few drinks and he was the one now confessing.

The two agreed, nothing had to happen right then and there. They agreed to take things slow for fear of something going wrong, like it always seemed to do. A month went by, they hadn't even shared a first kiss; like shy school boys all over again. They were in their early twenties, what was the rush? When they said slow, they hadn't thought they had meant _this_ slow.

But then they cracked, and like the rest of it all it flowed like wine. It felt right, would always feel right. They drank it up, drank each other up, until they could hardly breathe. For a minute they forgot their names, who they were, and then they pushed it so far there was no going back. With no regrets, no hindrances, it was perfect and it was finally theirs. They were finally each other's and that's what mattered to them the most.

Two months came and went, Kai moved in with Tala and then four months later Kai proposed. Their perfect world kept growing, feeling like they were the only two people alive at that moment in time. The pieces were falling in place instead of all over, this was how it was meant to be and within another year they were married.

It was a small ceremony, a few of their old friends came to congratulate them. Finally the puzzle had been completed, almost. There was a small piece missing, one that not many people wish to add, but they wanted to.

It was a hard battle, not many people wished to let two men raise a child regardless of how well known they were or how wealthy they were. Tala lost countless nights of sleep, stressing over it and Kai stood by his side holding his hand best he could. They were given the run around too many times, both losing the hope of having what they wanted as each and every opportunity slipped through their fingers. Finally they caved, going to their friends for help since the system refused.

Their friends understood, they gave their condolences, and finally one stepped up to help them. It was a new battle now, one they were familiar with, but this one was also different. With the fear of their friends changing their minds at the last minute, to losing it all together. They were still walking on pins and needles. Nine months, they had to wait nine agonizing months for their little girl to be born.

Good on their word, their promise, the child was now theirs and the final puzzle piece had been placed as the child had been placed in Tala's arms.

There was a love, almost instant, but also a fear. They hadn't been raised with love, they hadn't been raised at all, but he vowed with all he had that he would raise his child with all he had. All the love he felt for his husband. Somehow he would hold the dark clouds at bay, the nightmares of the past would have to claw their way back to the surface if they wanted to hold him again because he wasn't ever going to let go of what he had now. He couldn't.

Through the blood, the tears, the pain and the scars, they made it through it all together. Parts of their worst selves would always come out, the apologies matching the crime and it was like they always inched closer still. Together they pushed, not just for themselves but for their child.

Despite the long path they had decided to take, in order to get back what they had, neither would have changed it for a second. They didn't need a redo; they didn't want to change anything about how and where their lives had taken them before they were reunited.

Good on their vows they grew old together, watching their daughter grow until she had moved on her own without them. It was bittersweet, it hurt, but she wasn't truly gone from their lives and they knew that. For two men who had been forged in a burning fire and broken in harsh winters, their child had a heart of gold. A sure-fire will that never seemed to burn out.

The visits were always too few and far between, but they always soaked it up for what it was worth. Enjoyed every second of it as if it would be the last. Holding onto one another as they watched her walk back out their front door once the visit had ended, waiting for however long until the next one.

In the blink of an eye there was another accompanying the visits, their little girl had fallen in love just like they had. It wasn't avoidable, they knew it would have been a matter of time anyways, and despite feeling replaced they saw the love between the two and welcomed the newcomer with open arms. Very subtly there were threats, they knew how to make people disappear and the newcomer understood his place and he never disappointed.

Two years later they walked their child down the aisle, a year later they were bubbling grandparents. The puzzle they had thought been completed years ago was being added to, not even realizing that it needed it but neither had a complaint or a word of protest.

What they had been denied as children they now had an abundance of, half the time they thought it was just a dream only to wake up and realize that this was their life. That what they had wasn't going to go anywhere, nor did they ever want it to.


End file.
